Stoner sat on the back of Rossi for the entire first lap. As the two riders came onto the start straight (1mile in length at Qatar) Stoner blew past Rossi. It seemed that the Yamaha was quickest around the tight parts of the circuit, but the Ducati certainly had the legs by a large margin on the straight.
Rossi sat and watched the back of Stoner for a few laps, and the pair pulled away from Danni Pedrosa. Rossi started to show his nerve by putting moves on Stoner, overtaking him at almost every lap till the end of the race. Unfortunately for Rossi, the Yamaha just could not live with the Ducati on the straights. Any time that Rossi put into Stoner, he just got overtaken on the straight, and most importantly, always before the finish line. Rossi, with two laps to go, realized this, and settled for second place.
A deserved win for Casey and Ducati on the first outing of 2007. Qatar is a very strange circuit, and I would think that Ducati may have to curb the revs at some other circuits where full throttle is used more often. It's also the first time that the teams have run directly against each other. I would imagine that Yamaha will work on the straight line speed.
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